Posts Tagged «software as a service»

In a somewhat surprising move, Adobe and Google have announced a streaming version of Photoshop for Chromebooks (Chrome OS) and the Chrome browser. This is potentially massive news for Chromebooks, as the lack of Big Software — those big, killer software suites for Mac and Windows — has always been a thorn in the side of Chrome OS’s attempted takedown of Microsoft and Apple’s domination of the laptop market.

Faced with poor adoption of Windows 8, and no clear sign that matters will improve any time soon, Microsoft is thinking about releasing a free or low-cost version of Windows 8.1 called “Windows 8.1 with Bing.” The theory is that, by providing a free (or perhaps low-cost) version of Windows 8.1, users of Windows XP, Vista, and 7, will finally be convinced to upgrade. Microsoft hopes to offset the massive loss of income by pushing more users towards services like Bing, OneDrive, and Office. This follows news from MWC 2014 that Microsoft is also considering a similar move for Windows Phone. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Microsoft’s latest version of Office is very much a work in progress, but it’s designed to tackle cloud usage and tablet functionality — all at the same time. How well it manages to pull that off…is debatable.

If you have never used OnLive, the streaming, cloud-based gaming service, let me tell you about its most surprising feature: It actually works. Now OnLive wants to use its technology to provide the PC desktop as a service. It wants to give you access to Photoshop running on a high-end service, from the OnLive client on your notebook, smartphone, or TV.

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